


no sooner looked but they loved

by Waywarder



Series: Ineffable Shakespeare, or: The Other Arrangement [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, As You Like It, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Kissing, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waywarder/pseuds/Waywarder
Summary: Crowley meant to say it coolly, indignantly, meant to retain his power over the situation, but it came out as a plea, nearly a whine: “And I am your Rosalind.”(I’m yours. Always. Please.)Celia’s line should have come next, so instead the pair were met with silence. Aziraphale dared to reach forward and place a hand on Crowley’s still-heaving chest.In which Crowley stumbles upon a certain angel enjoying some Shakespeare in the Park.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Shakespeare, or: The Other Arrangement [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711726
Comments: 16
Kudos: 84





	no sooner looked but they loved

_New York City, 1963._

Crowley skulked through Central Park that Saturday night, hands stuffed into his pockets. He’d finished up his temptation hours ago, and there was nothing keeping him from going home, but he felt… 

Twitchy.

He paused to take a deep lungful of the crisp New York air that he did not need. There was something about the air here. Sure, it was still polluted as anything, but there was something missing from it. Something wonderful, to be sure, and something that Crowley sorely missed, but something of which the absence also brought Crowley a terrible sort of relief. 

Crowley sighed out loud, willing his nerves to settle. 

To be clear, each and every nook and cranny of the globe made Crowley think of Aziraphale, but it was easier the further away he was from London. He didn’t was as many memories of Aziraphale- stupid, clever, infuriating, beautiful Aziraphale- here as he did back in London.

“ _And the feeling is mutual. Obviously!_ ”

Anger and hurt welled up in Crowley’s belly at the thought. That was supposed to be it. He didn’t need the angel, after all. He was always better off when he wasn’t being dragged into some catastrophe of Aziraphale’s. Wasn’t he?

This time, Crowley swore out loud, and kicked a rock as he walked along. 

But then the idiot had gone and gotten himself mixed up with _Nazis_ of all the blasted… and Crowley _couldn’t_ … Look, he’d _tried._

Aziraphale had invited him inside the bookshop that night. Who knows what could have happened? Crowley attempted to shove his hands deeper into his pockets, grimacing to himself, but, as you know, they were awfully tight things. 

_You know what would have happened. You would have gotten drunk, and you would have bitten your tongue to keep from saying anything stupid, and you would have gone home alone._

And that was becoming harder and harder for Crowley to do, so he’d declined. Hadn’t even gotten out of the Bentley. He’d tried to ignore the obvious surprise and disappointment and, fine, sadness in Aziraphale’s eyes. 

He kicked another rock.

“Stop thinking about him,” he warned himself, as if such a thing was even possible. What else was there to even think about? There was the vastness of the entire world and everything and everyone that had ever encountered it, sure, but, then, on the other hand…

There was Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, soft and ridiculous and radiant and smelling always of Earl Grey tea and whatever it is that gives old books their comforting scent. Crowley stopped moving and closed his eyes. Fuck, he could almost smell it now.

His eyes snapped open. 

There, somewhere off to his right, he was certain of it.

Crowley turned down the path, and stalked, with more purpose now, in the direction of ( _fucking fuck_ ) the angel’s scent.

What he came upon was a play.

(Central Park was always bigger than Crowley remembered it was.)

There was no mistaking it: there was a little stage, there amongst the trees and the green. An audience sitting on the grass or on blankets laughed appreciatively. Crowley listened for a moment to see if he recognized the text…

“ _All the world’s a stage…_ ”

Ah. _As You Like It_ , then. Bloody Shakespeare, of course.

Crowley scanned the crowd until he found him. Crowley half-expected to find him on his own picnic blanket, spread out under the stars, surrounded by cakes and what-have-you, but no. There he was, far back away from the rest of the crowd. Aziraphale stood in the back, beside a tree, eyes fixed almost hungrily on the action onstage.

He was mouthing along with the actors, Crowley noticed. The sight of Shakespeare pouring, even silently, out of Aziraphale’s mouth sparked something deep inside of Crowley.

It was their other Arrangement, after all, nearly as old as their first one. The Arrangement that seemed to say, “It’s okay, so long as we use borrowed words.”

So, Crowley first stopped time around them, and then he did:

He watched Aziraphale look around at the paused actors in confusion. Then watched Aziraphale put it together.

Thought (hoped) that he saw something like a blush come over the angel’s face.

Moving a tad more awkwardly than he would have liked among the frozen crowd, Crowley called out to Aziraphale, “ _Why, how now, Orlando! Where have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more._ ”

Aziraphale’s lips trembled a little even as they curled up into a smile. “ _My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise._ ”

Crowley threw his head back and laughed bitterly, continuing to weave his way through still bodies, closer and closer to Aziraphale. “ _Break an hour’s promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part of of the thousandth part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o’ the shoulder, but I’ll warrant him heart-whole._ ”

Crowley stopped in his tracks about ten feet away from Aziraphale. He noted with some surprise that he was breathing rather heavily, that he was shaking a little himself. As each of Rosalind’s lines flew out of his mouth, he clocked more and more that he was angry with Aziraphale. 

It wasn’t a place he liked to go in his head or in his heart: Angry at Aziraphale. But, fuck, the angel knew, he must have! They found these poetry-laden excuses from time to time to be so much closer than they ever could be as themselves, and fuck, what if it was just dressing up and playing pretend to Aziraphale? Crowley looked at the angel’s smile, and it was radiant and perfect, and Crowley felt furious.

Crowley, feeling quite demonic indeed, wanted to burn the fucking stage and forest down, and stand in the flaming wreckage, and scream at Aziraphale: “ _I_ love you! Not Romeo, not Benedick, not Rosalind. _I do, angel._ ”

He did not, of course, do this. 

The smile faded from Aziraphale’s face as he seemed to take in Crowley’s mood.

“ _Pardon me, dear Rosalind._ ”

(I’m sorry, my dear.)

“ _Nay,_ ” Crowley snarled. “ _An you be so tardy, come no more in my sight: I had as lief be wooed of a snail._ ”

(This hurts me. You’re not stupid. See that this hurts me, and do something about it.)

Aziraphale tilted his head to one side in apparent confusion. “ _Of a snail?_ ”

“ _Ay!_ ” Crowley was too loud now, he could feel it, but oh, it felt good. It felt good to be some kind of honest with Aziraphale. “ _Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure,I think, than you make a woman: besides he brings his destiny with him._ ”

Aziraphale’s lips twitched again, and Crowley wanted to scream at him. 

“ _What’s that?_ ” Aziraphale asked, his voice all warmth and fondness, and _oh, fuck you, angel._

So, Crowley did scream: “ _Why, horns, which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife._ ”

Crowley paused at that line. What… what the fuck was he talking about? Dammit, Will.

“ _Virtue is no horn-maker,_ ” and Aziraphale was stepping closer to him, tentatively, and Crowley wanted to grab him and kiss the careful consideration right out of him. “ _And my Rosalind is virtuous._ ”

Crowley meant to say it coolly, indignantly, meant to retain his power over the situation, but it came out as a plea, nearly a whine: “ _And I am your Rosalind._ ”

(I’m yours. Always. Please.)

Celia’s line should have come next, so instead the pair were met with silence. Aziraphale dared to reach forward and place a hand on Crowley’s still-heaving chest. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began, but Crowley couldn’t do it. He forced some kind of strangled laugh from his throat and jerked away from Aziraphale’s touch.

“ _Come, woo me, woo me,_ ” Crowley hated himself. “ _For now I am in a holiday humor and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, and I were your very very Rosalind?_ ”

Aziraphale hesitated. He looked hurt, Crowley realized, and, if possible, he hated himself even more. This game wasn’t supposed to go this way.

“They haven’t even gotten to this part yet, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, bringing his hands together in that familiar, nervous position in front of his waist.

In a fit of madness (love merely is one, you know), Crowley took Aziraphale’s clasped hands in his. Aziraphale unwound them in order to hold each of Crowley’s hands in his own. They were out of their text, they knew, and Crowley was still angry, still hated himself, still knew that he ought to cut his losses and go home, but he was holding Aziraphale’s hands and he knew the next line like he knew his own name, and-

“Please say it, angel,” Crowley said, all venom gone. 

Still uncertain, Aziraphale furrowed his brow and looked hard at Crowley, as though he was trying to find some deeper truth hidden within Crowley’s face. So, Crowley took a hand away from the angel, and removed his glasses. 

(See me, please.)

“ _I would kiss before I spoke,_ ” Aziraphale said, carefully.

“I forget what comes next,” Crowley lied, and then threw his arms around Aziraphale’s neck. 

Aziraphale made a noise of surprise against Crowley’s mouth that quickly turned into a moan. For a second, Crowley stopped, panicked that the last words out of his mouth had been his and not Rosalind’s, but then Aziraphale was putting his hands on Crowley’s hips and backing him up against the nearest tree with more force than he’d ever displayed in any of their previous Shakesperean interludes. 

The few kisses they’d shared over the centuries had generally fallen into the category of sweet. Desperate, slow, and full of devastating longing. Tasteful, really. 

But now:

Crowley’s head slammed back against the bark of the tree, but he couldn’t possibly have cared less. Aziraphale’s mouth was at his throat now, and damn, the angel really did seem to be making good on kissing before he spoke. Aziraphale threaded his fingers through Crowley’s hair, gripping the strands firmly, and Crowley pressed his body as tightly against Aziraphale’s as he possibly could. Fuck, it wasn’t enough. Crowley brought his hands away from Aziraphale’s neck and clasped instead at the bottom of his beloved waistcoat, using it to draw their hips closer together.

They kissed and kissed, and let it be known that Aziraphale slid his tongue into Crowley’s mouth first this time, and, fuck, Crowley wanted to lay Aziraphale down, right there on the grass, beneath the starry sky. Wanted to press kisses all up and down the angel’s body, and hear his name on those holy lips. 

_His name._

Crowley wrenched his face away, panting. Aziraphale surged forward to kiss him again, but Crowley stopped him with a hand to the angel’s chest.

“Who am I?” Crowley breathed.

Aziraphale, lips still parted, stared at him, blue eyes full of confusion. “What?”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said his name as purposefully as he could. He increased the pressure of his hand on Aziraphale’s chest, proving to himself that, yes, he was real, this beautiful angel before him. “Aziraphale. Who am I?”

“That’s…” Aziraphale took a step backwards, hands instinctively going up to straighten his bow tie. “That’s not in the play.”

“Who am I?”

Aziraphale looked down at the grass.

“ _My Rosalind._ ”

If Crowley’d had a heart, he would have magicked himself a knife to carve it out of his fucking useless body. He carefully placed his sunglasses back on his face, smoothed down his hair, willed himself to forget that Aziraphale’s fingers had ever been in it.

“Crowley-”

“ _I can live no longer by thinking,_ ” Crowley said.

He snapped his fingers, once, twice.

The show went on.

Crowley went home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I'm sorry that this one doesn't have a happy ending; apparently, I had some feelings to put on some text!
> 
> I think I'm going to keep doing little Shakespeare one-offs for a while, so let me know if you have a request for a particular play or line or character or anything.
> 
> I'm [wiserandwaywarder](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wiserandwaywarder) over on Tumblr, if you want to shout about Ineffables or Shakespeare or both!


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